At the 2024 THE Global Sustainable Development Congress, panellists discussed how data can enhance research impact around and beyond the SDGs
How can we ensure that data about scholarship, teaching and learning can help us to better address the urgent global challenges of our times, from social inequality to climate change? Through collaborative dialogue and practical data demonstrations, experts from the higher education sector discussed these questions during the 2024 THE Global Sustainable Development Congress in Bangkok.
“Universities are well placed to drive progress towards the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs],” noted Kevin Dunn, provost at Western Sydney University (WSU). “They provide the educational opportunity for students to acquire knowledge and the skills needed to promote sustainable development. It’s for these reasons and more that it is so important for us to look at the ways we measure our progress in universities toward and beyond the SDGs.”
Rankings are one way of measuring this progress. They have become a global language that is well understood, but it remains crucial to drill down into the metrics that underpin these rankings, unpack them and understand the data behind them. “Most of us are keen to know ranking results,” said Jingwen Mu, director of institutional research and strategic planning at Hong Kong Baptist University. “But few of us know what underpins them.”
When fully understood, rankings can provide guidance for university strategies and teaching and learning methodologies, particularly considering the SDGs. For example, WSU’s decadal strategy, known as Sustainability and Resilience 2030, is based on a framework that focuses on curriculum, operations, research and engagement. It supports WSU’s institutional strategy, which aims to secure a leadership position in THE’s Impact Rankings as one of its priorities.
“Our decadal strategy came together after two years of work,” explained Jen Dollin, director of sustainability education and partnerships at WSU. “It’s a very different strategy from our other decadal and institutional strategies. Using a horizon-scanning, future thinking methodology, the strategy employs nine interlinked priority statements and challenges and is underpinned by Indigenous knowledge and planetary health statements as well as the SDGs.”
Many university strategies are also underpinned by digital solutions, which can prove especially useful when data and rankings are used to guide institutional policy. This is highlighted by the services offered by Digital Science, a provider of research workflow solutions.
“We cover a huge, interlinked database that represents the entire research lifecycle,” said Ann Campbell, technical solutions manager for data at Digital Science. “We don’t just track and measure indexed journals because we believe the end user should decide what research they want to look at. For instance, there’s a lot of research in less-developed countries that currently just isn’t visible. We’re working hard in partnership with these regions to address this.”
The work undertaken by Digital Science exemplifies some of the innovative approaches to research evaluation and education at institutions. Rankings can have a real impact and showcase what universities are doing around the SDGs if the right data and metrics are used.
“There are measures we’re not using, that we could be using, to track universities’ commitment to the SDGs,” said Dunn. “The collaboration gap this creates and the loss associated with that, even for researchers from higher-income countries, is something the sector must do more to address.”
The panel:
- Ann Campbell, technical solutions manager for data, Digital Science
- Jen Dollin, director, sustainability education and partnerships, Western Sydney University
- Kevin Dunn, provost, Western Sydney University
- Jingwen Mu, director of institutional research and strategic planning, Hong Kong Baptist University
Find out more about Western Sydney University.
